If You Build It, They Will Come

Sydney Architecture Festival encourages the public to get involved in the city’s spaces.

Carter Williamson Architects Emergency Shelter

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Indigo Slam Exterior

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Published on 12 September 2016

by Georgina Safe

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“We all experience design and architecture every day. I encourage everyone to find out why some buildings and objects are superior to others,” says architect and Sydney Architecture Festival (SAF) ambassador Penelope Seidler.

The 10th annual SAF returns with a four-day program of talks, events, tours and architecture installations. The festival ends on World Architecture Day with a speech by Indy Johar, architect, sustainability expert and the co-founder of Architecture 00, which specialises in urban regeneration and sustainable futures.

This year the SAF is partnering with Central Park Sydney. Events and activities will take place around the former Carlton United Breweries site and the surrounding Chippendale region. The aim is to connect people to place and to transform their experience of architecture and design.

“It is our duty as architects and professionals to engage the wider public in a discussion about spaces and places that they can relate to,” says festival ambassador and urban strategist Michelle Tabet.

Presented by the NSW Architects Registration Board, the program of free and ticketed events includes morning, lunchtime, evening and weekend slots suited to industry professionals and local community members.

The festival will celebrate Sydney, architecture and design and teach what good architecture is. It will also focus on the role architecture can play in “achieving a sustainable, healthy and culturally rich built environment”, says registrar of the NSW Architects Registration Board Tim Horton.

Walking and Talking Chippendale tours will explore the creative precinct and reveal lesser-known stories about its architecture. Swamp, Squat, Skol, an audio-documentary created by ABC Radio National for SAF will charts the colourful history of the site over the past century. Two architectural installations will be unveiled, Pod Life and The Global 1:1. These radically rethink housing and consider what personal and public spaces mean in different countries.

Day three of the festival includes a workshop called Meet an Architect at which participants will learn about design and building in Sydney. The children’s workshop, Supermodels – Architects of Tomorrow, will encourage kids to get in touch with their inner architect. The (sh)ArchTank, presented in partnership with Urbanistas and BKA Architecture, is an evening full of potential DIY-architecture solutions.

The Sydney Architecture Festival is on from September 30 to October 3 at Central Park Sydney.